‘I made a huge mistake’ – Klopp apologises to Liverpool legend after in transfer talk

It appears that Sadio Mane will leave Bayern Munich this summer, but there has been no talk of the Senegalese player returning to Liverpool.

The 31-year-old decided to end his Reds career last year in favor of a £35m transfer to Bavaria after winning everything there was to win at Anfield. But even though he would win the Bundesliga championship in his first season in Germany, his rookie season eventually turned out to be unsuccessful.

Last season, the attacker played in 38 games for Bayern and scored 12 goals. Despite this, he played in just 25 Bundesliga games and made just 27 starts across all leagues as he struggled to recapture his best form. The forward was suspended for one game in April following an altercation with teammate Leroy Sane in the locker room, and rumors that the Bavarians planned to move him on have persisted ever since.

Bayern’s £60 million bid for Harry Kane, even though it was rejected, would indicate that the Bundesliga giants are preparing for a future without Mane, who is reportedly considered surplus to requirements by new manager Thomas Tuchel. Although there have been rumors that he would move to Saudi Arabia and return to the Premier League, his future is still up in the air at this time.

After witnessing the forward score 120 goals in six seasons on Merseyside, Kopites waved him off last summer with a heavy heart. He had helped Liverpool win six trophies and be named champions of England, Europe, and the world after helping them return to the Champions League for the first time since 2009.

It was inevitable that the Reds would eventually have to think about moving on without the forward, who was 30 years old and had one year left on his contract. Liverpool’s management can take solace in the fact that they got to enjoy Mane’s prime years before they sold him for a profit despite his waning success in Germany.

The Senegal international was the second piece of the Reds’ attacking jigsaw when he was acquired from Southampton in the summer of 2016. Roberto Firmino was already on the Reds’ roster. After Mohamed Salah joined the team the following year, Jurgen Klopp assembled the best front line in Europe, which dominated everything in their path.

Mane was actually brought in at the beginning of the German manager’s first full season at the club as he looked to win over skeptics at Anfield. The Liverpool manager’s ambition to sign the Senegalese from the Saints stemmed from a prior transfer blunder that led him to confess he should have punched himself. He was looking to strengthen his attack.

Klopp has been following Mane’s development since his outstanding performance at the 2012 London Olympics, and even had discussions with the then-RB Salzburg player about a potential transfer to the Westfalenstadion in 2014. On this particular case, he quickly realized he had made a terrible mistake after deciding the player wasn’t for him.

“I made a mistake,” said Klopp. “We met each other, we talked but by the end I didn’t feel it. I like the player, it was more of a feeling.

“His baseball cap was askew, the blond streak he still has today. He looked like a rapper just starting out. I thought, ‘I don’t have time for this’. I’d say I have a pretty good feeling for people, but was I wrong!

“At Dortmund we could only get one player for this position, not two or three, so it needed to be exactly the right fit in this moment. About three months later I would have punched myself, so I already knew that the next chance I have, I would take it.

“It was a pretty simple decision with Sadio. When the club came this summer and Michael Edwards said we have an opportunity, there were no talks necessary any more. It was a case of ‘Let’s do it’.

“Since I came here I have spoken to the staff a lot about him and have always felt he could be a very good signing for us. He would have been more expensive if we had taken him to Dortmund and then he had been sold to Liverpool, so all good for Liverpool. The more I think about it, that was my first Liverpool decision. Nice!”

Dortmund’s loss was Liverpool’s gain as Klopp made sure he got his man in 2016, even stealing him from under the noses of Manchester United in the process. And the German would apologise to the forward in a secret phone call when trying to persuade him to join him at Anfield.

“I have to say I was really close to going to Manchester United,” Mane admitted in an interview with the Telegraph when recalling his decision to join Liverpool. “I had the contract there. I had it all agreed. It was all ready.

“I still remember the first time I got the call from Klopp. I was watching TV. It was an action movie – because I love movies – and he said, ‘Sadio, listen, I want to explain to you what happened at Dortmund.’

“That was when he thought of signing me for Dortmund and for some reason it didn’t work out. He tried to explain and I said, “‘It’s okay, it happened.’ I forgave him. Then he said, ‘Now I want you at Liverpool.” And I said, “Okay, Dortmund is behind us, let’s focus on the future.’”

Eight years on from his failed move to Dortmund, Mane belatedly got a transfer to the Bundesliga, but only after enjoying his peak years at Liverpool under Klopp. And while the German would inevitably have preferred the forward to stay put at Anfield, he was at least able to put right the decision that left him wanting to punch himself all those years ago.

But while Mane will be looking to rediscover his best Reds form elsewhere, should he indeed leave Munich this summer, he won’t be granted a Reds return. As much as Klopp wanted to punch himself for not signing the forward first time around, such an itch was suitably scratched by six trophy-laden years on Merseyside.

And even if the 31-year-old did return to the Premier League and ended up haunting his former club, you can’t forsee the German kicking himself at not making a move. The signings of Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez, and Cody Gakpo ensure he has already suitably been replaced at Anfield, after all.